A predominantly one-topic blog: how is it that the most imminent and lethal implication for humankind - the fact that the doctrine of "Mutually Assured Destruction" will not work with Iran - is not being discussed in our media? Until it is recognized that MAD is dead, the Iranian threat will be treated as a threat only to Israel and not as the global threat which it in fact is.
A blog by Mladen Andrijasevic

There's at least one major point of agreement, however, for both Americans and Iranians (although it's doubtful the U.S. negotiating team actually understands what it means). That single point of agreement is about the temporary nature of the pact/letter/Joint Plan of Action: first it was going to be for six months, then it would be for six months after a few more details were worked out, then the technical discussions in Vienna collapsed on 11 December, then Secretary Kerry said the talks would continue in a few days. And then Mohammad Sadeq Al-Hosseini, formerly a political advisor to Iranian President Khatami and now a TV commentator, clarified everything.

"This is the Treaty of Hudaybiyya in Geneva," he said, speaking on Syrian News TV on 11 December 2013. Although it is doubtful that any of Kerry's advisers is even remotely familiar with this key episode in the accounts about Muhammad and the early Muslims, the Center for Security Policy explained the story in its 2010 book, "Shariah: The Threat to America." The context is about situations in which Muslim forces might lawfully enter into a treaty or truce with the enemy. With troubling ramifications for current day negotiations, those situations demonstrate the centrality and importance of deceit in any agreement between Muslims and infidels. As it is recounted, in the year 628 CE, Muhammad (whose forces already controlled Medina) agreed to a 10-year truce with the pagan Quraysh tribe of Mecca, primarily because he realized that his forces were not strong enough to take the city at the time. Islamic doctrine in fact forbids Muslims from entering into a jihad or battle without the reasonable certainty of being able to prevail. In such cases, as with Muhammad, Muslims are permitted to enter into a temporary ceasefire or hudna, with the proviso that no such truce may exceed 10 years (because that's the length of the agreement Muhammad signed). And so, Muhammad agreed to the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. But just two years later, in 630 CE, now with some 10,000 fighters under his command, Muhammad broke the treaty and marched into Mecca.

The authoritative ahadith of Bukhari provide context for Muhammad's actions: "War is deceit," is a saying Bukhari attributes to Muhammad (52:269). Another says "By Allah, and Allah willing, if I take an oath and later find something else better than that, then I do what is better and expiate my oath." (Bukhari: V7B67N427) Yasser Arafat, head of the jihadist Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), provided one of the clearest examples in modern times for how this works. He understood his Islamic obligations well, as demonstrated by his repeated public references to the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. And while Western political leaders missed the significance entirely, Arafat's Arabic-speaking audiences understood perfectly that his Camp David agreement meant nothing more than a temporary hudna or ceasefire that would give the PLO the time it needed to build up its forces to renew the jihad against Israel...which is exactly what happened.

The shariah (Islamic Law) in general discourages Muslim forces from making a truce, citing Qur'anic verse 47:35, which says, "So do not be fainthearted and call for peace, when it is you who are the uppermost." The main reason Islamic forces are to avoid ceasefires, treaties and the like is that "it entails the nonperformance of jihad, whether globally or in a given locality..." Of course, the Iranians know all of this doctrine and history very well. The country's constitution, in fact, dedicates its armed forces (the Army and the IRGC-Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) to "the ideological mission of jihad in the way of Allah..." So, when a senior political commentator such as Mohammad Sadeq Al-Hosseini, who lives and works in Tehran, appears on an international TV broadcast interview and refers to the agreement (however tentative) reached by the P5+1 and Iran in Geneva as a "Treaty of Hudaybiyya," we may be sure that he has chosen his words carefully. We also may be fairly certain that the Iranian regime and its sly and smiling Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, at least tacitly agree with Al-Hosseini's characterization.

We can only hope that someone tells senior Western leaders what the reference means, because there is no doubt that the Muslim world, especially the Sunni Muslim world, got it immediately. The Saudi royal family in particular clearly is under no illusions about Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions-and is deeply alarmed, as much over the millennialist zeal of the arch rival Shi'ite Persians as the perceived perfidy of an American administration that has just switched sides, leaving Riyadh scrambling to cobble together a new defense policy. Thus the deliberate leaks about possible discussions with Pakistan concerning a nuclear weapons capability for the Saudis and the astonishing sight of a senior member of the Saudi royal family publicly shaking hands with a top Israeli diplomat.

As Ilan Berman notes in a 17 December 2013 piece entitled "The Real Cost of Geneva," the balance of power in the Middle East is shifting, even before Iran has demonstrated a deliverable nuclear weapons capability. The U.S. pivot towards the Shi'ite jihadis (Iranians and Hizballah) leaves erstwhile allies among the Sunni jihadis (Saudi royals) aghast. Recognizing the new rising "strong horse" in the region, smaller Sunni sheikhdoms like the United Arab Emirates already are seeking to normalize relations with Tehran. All trends are not towards stability, however. The collapse of American leadership and acquiescence to Iranian hegemony in the region instead are encouraging Israel and others to pursue their own defense strategies in ways that soon could prove deeply destabilizing.

Whether or not the nuclear negotiations with Iran yield clear results in coming weeks or drag out inconclusively for months or more, the U.S. already has signaled its willingness to allow (and even facilitate) a dangerous realignment of power in the Middle East that favors the Shi'ite axis over the Sunni one. Reactions and counter-reactions already have been set in motion that could change the geo-strategic landscape, not just in the region, but globally. The Iranian commentator Mohammad Sadeq Al-Hosseini may have been projecting from a distinctly Shi'ite perspective, but as the Iranians see it, first comes the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah in Geneva, and then "it will be followed by a conquest of Mecca."

Clare M. Lopez a senior fellow at the Clarion Fund, writes regularly for RadicalIslam.org, and is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, national defense, and counterterrorism issues.

Here again the West is being bamboozled because of its ignorance of Islam.For those unfamiliar with Islamic terms like hudna here is an explanation:

Israel must first learn the meanings of these
Islamic terms and then alert the West to the dangers inherent in their
unilateral imposition. The West must denounce any Arab efforts that are not
part of universally accepted rules of engagement.

A few days prior to
“Nakba Day,” Yuval Diskin, chief of the Shin Bet, predicted that hudna or tahdiah (he
used the two terms interchangeably) would not last but that “Nakba Day” could
escalate beyond what we had experienced in previous years. The prodigious Chief
of Security was proven to be correct in his forecasts. However, his use of the
above terminology was not accurate and could confuse uninitiated audiences.“Nakba,” the Arabic term for catastrophe, was first appropriated by the Arabs
following the 1948-9 war with Israel. They lost their national foothold in Palestine and as a result
of their bitter opposition to share the land with the Jews under the November
1947 UN partition plan, many of them became refugees. The concept of “Nakba”
was then institutionalized in Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari's seminal book “The
Mystery of the Catastrophe (Nakba)” in 1955. This, together with “Land Day”
(launched by Arabs in Israel on
March 30, 1976) signaled the evolution of the Palestinian issue from a
socio-economic/religio-cultural one into a politico-national one.

The Palestinian and larger Arab community’s partaking of the commemorative
“Nakba Day” is of more recent memory, following the growing influence of the
22-member Arab League and the 57-member Organization of Islamic countries in
the UN. In many Muslim and Arab countries it is marked with ceremonies and
processions. But only in the countries directly adjacent to Israel (apart from Iran), did this event
witnessed outbursts of violence and garner any significance.

This year, in preparation for September’s UN climax - mistakenly promoted by
Palestinians and Arabs as a showdown with Israel - Nakba’s significance seems to have peaked. The apparent
purpose of this year’s “Nakba Day” was to delegitimize Israel and hail the "right of return"
of Palestinian refugees.

In recent years Hamas invented new international terminology to impose on its
enemies. This is because Hamas is not a state and therefore does not recognize
or use internationally accepted norms and concepts like contractual peace,
cease fire, exchange of prisoners, agreed boundaries, and peace process. And
because Hamas is enmeshed within civilian populations (getting protection from
human-shields), no one can retaliate or respond to their challenges without
raising the wrath of the world. So Hamas plays the game on their terms and with
their terminology. Two examples of terms that Hamas has introduced to the international
arena are hudna (cease-fire) and tahdiah (calm).

While in the past the PA might have displayed a certain degree of readiness to
sign a peace treaty even one that they may renege on at a
later date), Hamas, along with other radical groups like Hizbullah,
straightforwardly declare that no peace is possible with the Jews/Israelis, and only a war of extermination to the finish
could resolve the conflict.

Since a peace plan is out of the question, Hamas resorts instead to the
Hudaybiyya precedent set by the Prophet himself, when, constrained by his
weakness at the gates of Mecca, Muhammad consented to a 10-year hudna.
Unlike Western ceasefires, which hinge on consent from both parties, hudna is
unilateral and the party implementing it can reverse it anytime they like.

Yet an open-ended hudna might, Allah forbid, imply a
recognition of Israel, as indeed may have been the case during the 19
years of truce/cease fire in 1948-67. To combat this, our creative terrorists
then introduced the term of tahdiah which doesn’t assume any
permanence and usually lasts up to one year. Only if Israel withdraws from all of Palestine and agrees
to the full right of return, would Hamas consider instituting a longer hudna (which
Islamic Sharia still limits to ten years at most).
It should then become clear to Israelis that while the PA and the rest of the Arabs may have despaired
of their own ability to defeat Israel militarily, they have also discovered that Israel can be made to either yield to its demise
via the current lawfare geared to delegitimize it, or be intimidated by the
Islamic alternatives embraced by Hamas, Hizbullah and other fundamentalist
movements throughout the Arab world.Israel's only way to resist then, is to alert the West
to the dangers inherent in the security arrangements that are forced on them by
Islam, and to insist that no international arrangement or settlement is
possible unless it is based on the universally accepted rules of engagement.

The writer is a professor of Islamic, Middle Eastern and Chinese history at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a member of the steering committee
of the Ariel Center for Policy Research.

The interim nuclear agreement between the P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States as well as Germany) and Iran is a disaster. President Obama has said that this deal dramatically reduces the likelihood of war. Ironically, it increases it. It certainly dramatically increases the likelihood that Iran will develop nuclear weapons.

The
Geneva interim agreement permits Iran to retain intact all the essential
elements of its nuclear weapons program:

§Continued construction of its Arak plutonium plant;

§Continued uranium enrichment to 5% (which, with 18,000
centrifuges, can enable swift enrichment to weapons-grade level, allowing Iran
to become a break-out nuclear state in a matter of months);

§Its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) programs (which,
according to U.S. intelligence, will enable Iran to strike the U.S. itself by
2015);

§Its enriched uranium stocks (Iran being simply required to
reduce them to an oxide which can be restored in weeks to weapons-grade
uranium).

The
interim agreement also grants Iran substantial sanctions relief totaling some
$20 billion; not the $6-7 billion originally forecast by the Administration.

Thus,
the P5+1 opted for an interim agreement which lets Iran off the sanctions hook.
If we could not obtain a final agreement with Iran that terminates its nuclear
weapons program when international sanctions are at their height, how likely
are we to obtain a final agreement that accomplishes that, now that sanctions
have been relaxed?

This is
a regime whose leadership has stated frequently that it intends to
destroy Israel. (The notion that this is a fallacy stemming from repeated
mistranslations has been debunked by an authoritative study by the
Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs). Indeed, during the Geneva negotiations,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking before a mass rally in which militiamen were
chanting ‘Death to America,’obscenely declaredthat “Zionist officials cannot be
called humans …The Israeli regime is doomed to failure and annihilation.”

Worse,
Tehran probably cannot be deterred from using nuclear weapons, because, as the
doyen of scholars of Islam, Emeritus Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton
Bernard Lewis, noted years ago, “MAD, mutual assured destruction … will not
work with a religious fanatic. For him, mutual assured destruction is not a
deterrent, it is an inducement.” Indeed, the Islamic Republic’s founder,
Ayatollah Khomeini, did declare, “We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah … I
say, let this land [Iran] go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in
the rest of the world.” Destroying Israel is central to its vision of Islamic
triumph.

What
could have been done? Continuing and increasing sanctions alone might have
induced Tehran to abandon its nuclear program. Intent on obtaining nuclear
weapons and becoming a regional superpower, Tehran might have yielded
nonetheless on the nuclear issue if the preservation of the regime — and thus
its ability to advance the radical Shia Islamist cause that animates it –was
endangered. We cannot be certain, but Tehran’s yielding, rather than risking a
run to the bomb, was a possibility.

However,
now that sanctions have been relaxed, Tehran will refuse to sign them away.
When that happens, contrary to President Obama contention that the
deal leaves us ‘no worse off,’ we will find that the tough sanctions that we
abandoned in Geneva cannot be reinstated, let alone strengthened.

Indeed,
this is the end of the sanctions regime. But even assuming that the sanctions
regime does not break down, it takes time for new contracts to be halted. Even
if, with hard work and good luck, certain sanctions are reinstated, it would
take many months for this to occur and many more months for them to take their
toll on Tehran.

In
other words, at best, we have lost a year — if not two or three — to bring the
regime around to the hard choice of abandoning its nuclear weapons program.
Given Iran’s ability to become a ‘break-out’ nuclear power in a matter of mere
months, we no longer have a year to spare.

Perhaps
a credible threat of U.S. military action even now might suffice: the only time
Iran halted its nuclear program was during 2003-5, when the U.S.-led coalition
dismantled Saddam Hussein’s regime. (Recall this was also the time that Libya
voluntarily relinquished its nuclear program). Clearly demonstrated U.S.
willingness to use force produced results.

It will
be extremely hard now for President Obama to credibly threaten military action:
if he failed to honor his red line and take military action when Syria actually
murdered thousands with chemical weapons, Iran is unlikely to take seriously
any red line he might lay down now on building nuclear weapons. Yet he should
do so without delay. But even if he does, there is now probably no way Iran can
be prevented from going nuclear, except through military action.

Morton A. Klein is
National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Dr. Daniel
Mandel is Director of ZOA’s Center for Middle East Policy and Fellow in History
at Melbourne University.

Friday, December 20, 2013

While vows are always made to fight anti-Semitism, its existence is not even admitted where it is found in its most frequent and obvious forms: among media and university "intellectuals;" among certain NGOs; in international institutions, such as the United Nations and its offshoots; within the European Union; in "liberal' organizations ostensibly promoting human rights -- and as a way of life, as well as a way to reinforce identity, in the Muslim world.

Anti-Zionism today, from Malmö to Qom, arises and multiplies entirely from prejudice. Most of Israel's most vicious critics have never even set foot in the state.

Such falsehoods have not only had some success; they have become mainstream. There is no protest against them from political parties, with few exceptions, or most cultural groups.

The problem of the Jews today, the world over, is not anti-Semitism but a new branch of it: "Israelophobia." The most productive fight for world Jewry and its allies at the moment would be not against anti-Semitism, even though Israelophobia is a part of it, but against Israelopbia itself.

The observances that took place in Europe to commemorate Kristallnacht, which took place on November 9, 1938, were abundant: no Jew could be unhappy about the surrounding sympathy, the public proclamation of the need to remember, the absolute rejection of any anti-Semitism, and even more, the rejection of any genocidal fervor against the Jews. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of many resolute speakers, said that the Germans must show their "strength of character, and promise that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated in any form." It was a point of view echoed by all European leaders, and it was nice to hear.

Unfortunately, however, these words are only a cheap way to address the problem. They do not keep in check all the other promises -- those to destroy the Jewish world, starting with Israel. If the fight against anti-Semitism were actually to be fought from memory and history, many programs, such as Holocaust studies in schools, movies on TV, trips to Auschwitz, interfaith dialogue, and the historical shame of racial laws would have had a deeper resonance in the European soul.

Even Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, occasionally embraces some local Jew and explains that he has nothing against Jews. In the Islamic world the commitment to kill Jews has a special religious character, as can be seen from the Hamas Charter -- in which Jews are accused of having caused all wars, and promises are made to kill them all, one by one, down to the last Jew -- as well as other positions taken by Hamas's parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. In other countries, such as Turkey, the discourse is different: the death sentence is first on Israel, and only secondarily on Jews. Either way, hatred of Israel, or Israelophobia, seems a fundamental element of Islamic ideology today, but does not stop just at that.

The term Israelophobia seems to stem from a prejudice and irrational hatred of Israel. The word was used for the first time, as far as I know, by Richard Prasquier, President of CRIF (the umbrella organization of the Jewish communities in France), and was presumably the obverse of "Islamophobia," a term used to define a huge cultural prejudice with a racist character towards the religion of the Prophet, while armies of human rights defenders stand guard against any element of discrimination against people of the Islamic faith.

"Israelophobia," on the other hand, is steeped in centuries of anti-Semitic stereotypes, but it has now taken on an intense life of its own, often rich in contemporary fabrications -- for example, that historically Jews have never lived in Jerusalem; that IDF soldiers harvest the organs of Palestinians; that the "wall of separation," built to keep out terrorists, is a form of apartheid -- and through these falsehoods gushes forth a hatred for Jews. Israelophobia is a block of hatred crystallized around a piece of land, around an idea. Anti-Zionism today, from Malmö to Qom, arises and multiplies entirely from prejudice against Israel: many of its most vicious critics have never even set foot in the state.

These attacks on Israel are all too often made up of devastating classical anti-Semitic projections, lies and distortions to delegitimize Israel -- the blood libel that Jews kill non-Jewish children to use their blood to bake matzah; bottomless greed; indifference, and savage cruelty toward anyone who is not Jewish. Even legitimate geopolitical decisions -- such as the right to self-defense, or not being expected to hold territory in perpetuity until such time as one's sworn enemies might perhaps decide not to threaten annihilation, with no cost for the delay; or ignoring other countries accused of "occupation," such as Turkey in Cyprus, Pakistan in Kashmir or China in Tibet, while singling out only Israel for opprobrium. These accusations are often translated not just into judgments against Israel, but then go viral against any Jew.

Such falsehoods have not only had some success; they have become mainstream. There is no protest against them from political parties, with few exceptions, or most cultural groups. Moreover, countering these lies or honoring historical truths count for nothing: facts just disappear. Thus, while political correctness does not allow for outright anti-Semitism -- all the TV presenters are ready to say a kind word to the Jews as a "different religion," and that they are appreciated as a "minority" -- anti-Israelism is not only on the rise; it is fashionable and snobbish. To say "that shitty little country," as the French ambassador to London, Daniel Bernard, did, is commonplace.

As Daniel Schwammenthal has written in the Wall Street Journal, before there was anti-Semitism without Jews; now there is anti-Semitism without anti-Semites. No one -- not even most of the Jewish leadership -- will publicly ascribe anti-Semitism to anyone except possibly the occasional neo-Nazi group. While vows are always made to fight anti-Semitism, its existence is not even admitted where it is found in its most frequent and obvious forms: among university and media "intellectuals;" in certain NGOs; in international institutions such as the United Nations and its offshoots; within the European Union; in "liberal" associations ostensibly promoting human rights -- and both as a way of life, as well as to reinforce identity, in the Islamic world. Recently, during a dinner with a high level diplomat, while discussing the increasing anti-Semitism in Europe, he responded with absolute amazement. "I have never met an anti-Semite in my life," he and his wife assured me; "I am sure that many of my closest friends would say the same thing: these episodes are sporadic, done by extremist groups, especially on the far right." That is not, however, the case.

No one, either on the left or right, believes Israelophobia to be a violation of human rights, or defends the Jewish people from this all-encompassing prejudice that covers the history and character of the Jewish people with lies. An attack on Israel is seen, rather, as a legitimate critique of a sovereign country; the revival of anti-Semitism (which is what it is) against the Jewish people is therefore considered not important.

European Jews, and even a large number of American Jews -- possibly hoping to avoid being the target of such a chill, and possibly hoping to join the bandwagon to fit in better with their non-Jewish neighbors -- have sidestepped a position of total support for Israel, and instead appear reticent and opportunistic. At a meeting with the Italian Foreign Minister shortly after Italy's unilateral recognition of Palestine at the UN, none of the representatives at the meeting of international Jewish leaders, apart from this author, dared to ask for an account of that event.

Any obvious lie can be told about Israel; it will always find a huge echo of consent. Reality and facts are always removed. In his latest book, The Devil That Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism, Daniel Goldhagen lists slanderous remarks that others have made about Israel, such as: Israel is a source of disorder for the neighboring countries; the cause of the dictatorships in the Middle East; the greatest threat to world peace; the Nazis of our time; it inspired the war against Iraq, it controls U.S. policy; it foments hatred toward the Americans and the West; it perpetrates genocide against the Palestinians; it wants to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque; it murders Palestinian children; it poisons wells and people, and so forth ...Israel's policy of sexual non-discrimination was called "pinkwashing," on the grounds that the attitude of respect toward gays, as opposed to the persecution of them in Muslim countries, is purely for propaganda purposes.

Much work has also been done to deconstruct the birthright of the Jews in Israel, claiming that their relationship to the land is non-existent, distant or inconstant. Another notion with which Israelophobia is packed is "illegal," often referring to the occupation of territories, but also to the very existence of a country that was never accepted by its neighbors, since day one, when five Arab armies attacked it in the hope of stamping it out before it could even start.

Of all the Asian or African democracies, according to Goldhagen, Israel is the most solid and the oldest; and, as the 57th member nation of the UN -- before Spain, Italy, Germany --- not a moment has passed without its existence being threatened by the terrorism and the religious and tribal hatred of the Muslim world, accompanied often by Europe.

In defending itself, Israel has lost 30,000 men, proportionally equivalent to 1.18 million Americans. It has lost 4,000 people to terrorism, the equivalent of 157,000 Americans. When, after yet another defensive war, Israel ended up pushing back Jordan and capturing the West Bank, which Jordan had occupied, it immediately offered to return the land -- only to have the offer rejected by the Arab League in the form of the three "Nos" of Khartoum: "No peace, no recognition, no negotiation."

When Israel made peace with Egypt, it had no problem returning the Sinai Peninsula, down to the last inch of land. But the responsibility for the difficulties of maintaining the peace with Egypt is always attributed only to Israel, which has never said or done anything that even vaguely resembles the aggression of its neighbors. It is nevertheless accused of the worst possible crimes and moral abjection -- charges which countries such as South Africa, for example, endorse without even bothering to verify whether or not they are true, claiming Israel is a country where apartheid is practiced, and forbidding government ministers to travel there. It does not matter if its democratic institutions and human rights record receive the highest ratings from Freedom House. It is mystifying that the UN recently condemned Israel for abuses in the Golan Heights, when in fact Israel accepts wounded Syrians and treats them freely in hospitals, while their own leader, Bashar Assad, tears them to pieces.

The consequence of Israelophobia is, not surprisingly, that anti-Semitism linked to Israel is on the increase. According to a study by the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 63% of Poles and 48% of Germans think "Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians." Meanwhile, 41% of the British and 42% of the Hungarians think the same thing, as well as 38% of Italians. In the survey, 55% percent of Poles and 36% of Germans responded: "Considering Israel's policy, I can understand why people do not like Israel." Respondents in other countries studied agree with this at percentages that range from 30-40%. According to a survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), 48% of European Jews interviewed have heard or read the accusation that "Israelis behave towards the Palestinians as the Nazis did to the Jews." In Italy, as in Belgium and France, 60% percent reported the same.

The mainstream "narrative," as it Is now called, although false, claims there was a "historic Palestine," which the perfidious Jewish "settlers" occupied, and from which they expelled the suffering population; yet this "narrative" is the basis of the hatred that leads to the toxic myths of the apartheid wall, the demolition of houses (would London allow houses built in Hyde Park; or Paris in the Bois de Bologne, or Berlin in the Tiergarten?); the persecution of the Palestinians and their children beaten and killed; the Zionist jailer locking Gaza in a cage; and, conversely, the glorification of terrorists, the widespread justification of attacks and missiles rained on Israel; the corrupt use of European public funds; the rejection of the very existence of a state for the Jewish people despite the acceptance of several self-declared Islamic "Republics," such as Pakistan and Iran; and Israel as considered an archeological remnant of colonialism, imperialism and a reincarnation of all evil forces, especially Nazism.

Daniel Schwammenthal also mentions Jack Straw, the former British Foreign Secretary, who last month in the House of Commons, said that AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby in America, "has made its unlimited funds one of the greatest obstacles to peace between Israelis and Palestinians" -- again a false statement; but, says Schwammenthal, the notion that that a large group of Americans can support Israel must be, to Straw, so incredible that consequences at once impossible and disastrous are ascribed to it. What actually does seem incredible that people such as the Greek composer Michael Theodorakis or José Saramago, a Portuguese writer who compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the Nazis' treatment of Jews at Auschwitz, and so many other intellectuals and notables, would be fully recruited for the Israelophobic battle.

In other incredible events, when, in Germany, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, Badische Zeitung published a cartoon by Horst Haitzinger in which a snail with the head of a dove goes to the peace talks with Iran, in a classic case of anti-Semitic slurs in which Jews are cast as poisoners, saboteurs and warmongers, Israel's Prime Minister,Binyamin Netanyahu is shown on the phone saying, "I need poison for doves and snails."

There seem three main reasons why Israelophobia exists:

The worldwide spread of a Muslim presence never before seen, including its globalization on the Internet, its proliferation of anti-Israel propaganda, and its power in institutions.

The spread of the culture of "human rights," in which anyone who appears to be an underdog must be "good," and anyone who appears not to be an underdog or victim must therefore be "bad."

The current government of the United States of America.

The current U.S. Administration has sincerely promoted a positive relationship between America and Islam that, in addition to being politically questionable, makes room in the world for the most brutal anti-Semitism. The decline of American influence has left a vacuum that has been filled by all kinds of alternatives to democracy - ideological and otherwise, from the al-Nusra Front to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as to Russia, China and Afghanistan.

The current Administration probably did not foresee this disastrous side effect, but it seems clear is that in designing the policy that prohibited the use of the word "jihad" in official U.S. documents, no one stopped to think about how many times that term has been used to explain terrorism against, for example, Israel. That point apparently does not strike anyone there as relevant to the president's international policies. Hatred toward the Jewish state, even in its most extreme forms, was apparently not regarded as having any political significance, and therefore has not, in recent years, been subjected to any ideological or moral sanction.

As for the relationship with Iran, it is clear that President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are leading the world towards acceptance of a military nuclear program for a country that has repeatedly spoken out in public about genocidal intentions. The U.S. negotiators seem to have easily swallowed a deal that destroyed any leverage for future negotiations; that had every benefit for Iran and effectively no benefits for the West; that assisted Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons instead of stopping enrichment, in accordance with six UN resolutions; that contained no improvements in human rights for Iran's citizens; and did not address Iran's threats, illegal under the UN Charter, to obliterate a fellow member-state, Israel.

Continual threats against Israel have also been coming from the Sunni world. In Egypt, Mohamed Badie, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, said, "We will continue to wave the flag of jihad against the Jews, our first and greatest enemies." Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi stated, "Allah has imposed upon the Jews a continuing punishment for their corruption. The last was led by Hitler. There is no dialogue with them other than the sword and the gun. We pray to Allah to kill every last one of them." New, is the complete lack of reaction to these positions.

Past American presidents have always either hinted at, or made plain, a prohibition of the most racist and dangerous aspects of Islam regarding Israel, the Jews, and Christians. Not so with the current U.S. Administration. No one in it has ever said to Iran, with which it is about to sign an agreement, that it may not consider Israel "a rotten root that must be destroyed."

No one in it has ever told the Palestinians that it is "not helpful" to repeat every day, especially during negotiations, that Israel is a murderous, racist, genocidal country -- a charge most recently leveled by Sa'eb Erekat, the head negotiator of the Palestinian delegation.

In a word, by seeming to give Islam a free hand in exchange for nothing in return, the current U.S. Administration has allowed the most severe hostile messages, both Israelophobic and otherwise, to spread without caution. Without America standing guard, all non-Muslim countries become fresh prey for their detractors.

On human rights, ironically, the organizations purportedly supporting them have spared no weapons in attacking Israel, one of the countries most conscientious about enforcing human rights despite the almost impossible conditions of a tiny country finding itself under military, economic or diplomatic attack -- often all three -- virtually every day since its birth. The assault from human rights groups cannot have resulted from observing facts. If pure facts were observed, Israel should be at, or near, the top of any list of nations that embody human rights. Anti-Western nations, however, which form majority at the United Nations, began associating Zionism with racism in 1975 -- probably meaning "Western imperialism." The claims were then advanced, and financed, by anti-Semitic NGOs, culminating in the UN's Durban Conferences. At that point, human rights became distorted into being used as a shield behind which to escalate attacks against Israel, as well as to protect UN "peacekeepers" in Africa from the "food for sex" scandal, where they sexually abused the children they were charged to protect.

The systemic disease with respect to "anti-imperialism" arose in the history of a political wing that, at a time when communism proved to be totalitarianism, chose not to complain about it, but to fight at its side against capitalism, imperialism, and whatever else then seemed an "injustice."

The Jews, however, with their history of suffering and death, no longer correspond to the image that they, more than any other comfortable white person in the West, are ammunition for the war against "bourgeois," or middle class, society. The Marxist economic view of class warfare can be seen as "win-lose" -- meaning, if I "win," it must have been by exploiting someone else, who "lost". The capitalist economic view, on the other hand, can be seen as that of "win-win": if you win, everyone wins: the rising tide lifts all boats with it. It is this capitalist view that has catapulted societies to undreamed-of success. From the Marxist model of winners versus losers, however -- which was popular in the early 20th century until it was proven catastrophic in nations such as Russia and Cuba, where the only winners turned out to be the few men in charge -- arose the use of the issue of human rights, often as a tactical and political weapon against anyone who even looked well-off -- especially against Israel, probably as the embodiment of a nation of mostly white people who, despite so many ongoing efforts to stamp them out, were not even slowed down.

The 1960s ushered in "radical-chic" verbal aggression, still in use, whereby the world is suddenly filled with "fascists." Considered as such were Margaret Thatcher, George Bush, Silvio Berlusconi, and Ronald Reagan, followed by writers and singers -- simply because they were not communists. Thus Israel, a friend of America, but which allegedly caused suffering to the Palestinians (a poor Arab third-world Muslim population, that, although no one ever talks about it, is accustomed to fierce and authoritarian leadership toward its own people), became a "fascist," "imperialist" country: because it was not in the "correct" camp, that of the "people's democracies" -- all of them in fact dictatorships, then and now.

The lack of clear condemnation of European terrorism, rationalized in various ways -- for instance, as comrades who had made a few mistakes -- was accompanied by justifying international terrorism against Israel: from the attack at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, up to the glorification of the terrorists recently released by Israel, who received the red-carpet treatment from Mahmoud Abbas, and were rewarded by the Palestinian Authority with checks for $50,000 each, plus a monthly stipend. One of these recently released terrorists had killed a father who was driving with his little girl by his side; another had killed a survivor of the Holocaust with a pickax; and another attacked and dismembered a man who worked in Gaza in an office that provided aid to the Palestinians.

These events are a subsection of Israelophobia in a world that legislates to have a smoke-free environment, but not against child-marriages or honor killings or female circumcision, and that has never felt the need to deal with terrorism against Israel, or with the human rights to which the Israelis might be entitled.

A few months ago, Baroness Catherine Ashton fretted publicly about the state of a Palestinian prisoner who had chosen the path of a hunger strike, yet she took no position on the massacres in Syria, not even those of the Palestinians in the Yarmouk refugee camp, where many Palestinians were massacred by the Assad regime's air raids.

The Jews, meanwhile, know that by staying within the established boundary of "Never Again," they find sympathy, understanding, and protection. Israel, on the other hand, is terra incognita, where any criticism, it seems, is considered "legitimate."

But Israelophobia has nothing to do with legitimate criticism of the State of Israel: it is not based on any observation of reality. It is an obsession, the clearest expressions of which are the UN's "Zionism is Racism" resolution of 1975; the fury with which nine motions were recently passed against Israel at the UN General Assembly, which were commented on even by a translator accidentally speaking into an open microphone; and when the UN General Assembly pushed through a total of 23 similar resolutions, in all of which legitimate defense becomes the cruelty of a "racist" and murderous country.

There needs to be a strategy which considers the consequences of Israelophobia. It would encompass the history of Israel, its values, its actions, its right to defend itself -- and the verbal and physical abuse to which it is constantly subjected. It is also necessary to continue fighting anti-Semitism. Any other option will allow terrorism -- against both Jews and non-Jews -- to grow.

Friday, December 13, 2013

My name is
Amos Yadlin . I used to be a general in the Israeli Air Force and
Intelligence and am now running a think tank in Tel Aviv. Looking into the
future agreement with Iran we put behind me the initial agreement and what is
really important is the final agreement . Two questions. What are the parameters
that you see as a red line to insure that Iran would be moving backward from
the bomb as much as possible, and what is your plan B if an agreement cannot be
reached?

President Obama:

Well, with
respect to the end state, I want to be very clear - there’s nothing in this agreement or document that
grants Iran a right to enrich. We have
been very clear that given its past behavior and given existing UN resolutions
and previous violations by Iran of its international obligations that we do not
recognize such a right and, by the way, negotiations break down there will be
no additional international recognition that’s been obtained .This deal goes
away and we go back to where we were before the Geneva agreement. Iran will
continue to be subject to all the sanctions that we have been putting in place
in the past and we may seek additional ones. But, I think what we have said is we
can envision a comprehensive agreement that involves extraordinary constraints
and verification mechanisms and intrusive inspections but that permits Iran to
have a peaceful nuclear program.

Now, in terms of specifics we know that they
don’t need to have an underground fortified facility like Fordo in order to have
a peaceful nuclear program. They certainly don’t need a heavy water reactor at
Arak in order to have a peaceful nuclear program. They do not need some of the
advanced centrifuges that they currently possess in order to have a limited
peaceful nuclear program. And so the
question is ultimately is going to be are they prepared to role back some of
the advancements that they’ve made that could not be justified by simply wanting
some modest peaceful nuclear power, but frankly, hint at a desire to have breakout
capacity and go right to the edge of breakout capacity. If we can move that significantly back then
that is I think a net win.

Now you will
hear arguments including potentially from the Prime Minster that we can’t
accept any enrichment on Iranian soil. Period. Full stop. End of conversation. And this takes
me back to the point I made earlier. One
can envision an ideal world in which Iran said we’ll destroy every element and facility
, you name it - is all gone. I can envision a world in which Congress passed
every one of my bills that I’ve put forward. There are a lot things that I can
envision that would be wonderful but
precisely because we don’t trust the nature of the Iranian regime I think that
we have to be more realistic and ask ourselves what puts us in a strong
position to assure ourselves that Iran is not having a nuclear weapon and protect
us. What is required to accomplish that
and how does that compare to other options that we might take, and it is my
strong belief that we can envision an end state that gives us an assurance that
even if they have some modest enrichment capability it is so constrained and
the inspections are so intrusive that they as a practical matter do not have
breakout capacity. Theoretically they might still have some. But frankly,
theoretically they will always have some, because as I said, the technology
here is available to any good physics student and pretty much any university
around the world, and they have already gone through the cycle to t the point
where the knowledge we are not going to be able to eliminate, but what we can
do is eliminate the incentive for them to want to do this.

And with respect
to what happens if this breaks down I won’t go into details. I will say that if we cannot get the kind of
comprehensive end state that satisfies us and the world community and the P5+1,
then the pressure that we have been applying on and the options that I’ve made clear I can avail myself of, including
the military option, is one that we would consider and prepare for. And we’ve
always said that, so that does not change. But last point I’ll make on this.
When I hear people who criticize the Geneva deal, say it’s got to be all or
nothing, I would just remind them if it’s nothing if we did not even try for
next six months to do this. All the breakout capacity we are concerned about would
accelerate e during these six months. Arak would be further along, the advanced
centrifuges would have been put in place. They would be that much closer to
breakout capacity six months from now. And that is why it is important for us
to test out this proposition

Thursday, December 12, 2013

When it comes to the Mideast, bad ideas never
die, no matter how implausible, improbable or impractical.

I ask you to imagine what a two-state solution
will mean for Israel, Palestine, Jordan and the region. Imagine what it would
mean for trade and for tourism – what it would mean for developing technology
and talent, and for future generations of Israeli and Palestinian children.
Imagine Israel and its neighbors as an economic powerhouse in the region. – John Kerry, US secretary of state, Saban
Forum, December 7.

Enough is enough. At some stage there must be a limit to the verbal garbage – I
resist the strong temptation to employ a somewhat coarser epithet – that one
can be subjected to before giving vent to pent-up exasperation and outrage.

A spade is still a spade.

Of late, this limit has been breached with increasing frequency – particularly
when the matter of the “Palestinian issue” is broached.

As the clock runs out on the viability of the so-called “two-state-solution,”
efforts to sustain it have become increasingly desperate, bizarre and
disingenuous.

The annual Saban Forum held in Washington over the weekend provided ample
examples of this near-hysteria, thinly veiled by the niceties of diplomatic
decorum and dialect, masquerading as far-sighted diplomacy and inspired
statesmanship.

They were all bandied about, with great fanfare, as if they comprised a bold,
yet-untried vision of a new future for peace, prosperity and regional
understanding – rather than a proven recipe for calamity.

But smooth semantics cannot transform frenetic fantasy into sound substance.
Merely because one describes a spade as a “manually operated device whose
principal function is the creation of elevation differentials on the surface of
the earth” does not mean that a spade is anything more lofty or exalted than a
spade.

Similarly, shying away from more earthy and abrasive expressions will not
transform utter absurdities into pearls of wisdom, no matter who is
articulating them and no matter how glittering the setting in which they do so.

So no matter how prominent and preeminent the participants at the Saban Forum
were, what took place in Washington was, well… wacko.

Resuscitating zombies?

Arguably, by far the wackiest performance at this upmarket theater of the absurd
was that of Secretary of State John Kerry, who omitted no opportunity to
harness any bit of hogwash, no matter how hackneyed, in an endeavor to convince
his audience that they should learn nothing from previous events.

Impervious to past failures, unmindful of present realities, and unmoved by
future probabilities, he sallied forth, seemingly oblivious to – or
purposefully ignoring – the policy train-wrecks that litter the Mideastern
political landscape, prescribing that the same wildly improbable ideas that
proved disastrous before be adopted again – under even more improbable
conditions.

Regurgitating moronic – indeed oxymoronic – mantras, he advocates the patently
preposterous precept that the key to regional tranquility and development is
Israeli withdrawal to indefensible borders which, in his mind, will somehow
miraculously make Israel “more secure.”

Listening to Kerry, it is difficult to avoid the eerie sensation of someone
trying to breathe life into what was presumed long-dead – in the macabre belief
that resurrected zombies can accomplish what their living predecessors failed
to do.
Bordering on delirium?

In an exhortation bordering on delirium, he urged his audience: “Just think
of how much more secure Israel would be if it were integrated into a regional
security architecture and surrounded by newfound partners.” A regional security
architecture? Really?

Could it be that the US secretary of state has been trapped in an Oslo-era
time-warp? Has he been too busy to catch up on the news in recent years as to
regional realities?

With turmoil in Egypt, carnage in Syria, brewing instability in Jordan,
burgeoning terror in Iraq (to name but a few of the centers of tumult in
Israel’s neighborhood), one can only puzzle over what “region” Kerry had in
mind when envisioning his “security architecture”; and what “newfound partners”
he thinks Israel might surround itself with to comprise the building blocks of
his imagined edifice.

In a futile attempt to bend recalcitrant reality to futile fancy, he exhorted
his audience to adopt wishful thinking as grand strategy, appealing: “I believe
that if you indeed care about Israel, and everybody here does, if you care
about its security, if you care about its future… we need to believe that peace
is possible.”

See what I mean by desperate?

More than two decades after Oslo – after all the assumptions on which that
ill-conceived and ill-considered process was based have been dramatically and
definitively disproven – what might have been excused as exuberant naiveté can
only be explained by moronic myopia or malevolent intent.

The return of the 'New Middle East'?

When it comes to the Mideast, bad ideas never die, no matter how implausible,
improbable or impractical.

So long as they are compliant with precepts of political correctness, they are
resurrected time and time again, in the forlorn hope that what failed before
will later succeed – see “Zombies” above.

This certainly seems the case with the failed notion of a “New Middle East,”
originally posited by Shimon Peres in wake of the post-Oslowian euphoria.

In broad brush strokes, it envisaged that a peace pact with Palestinians would
provide the impetus for the establishment of an EU-like reality across the
Mideast and North Africa, from Casablanca to Kuwait. It of course was shattered
on the rocky regional realities and for years was considered a risible casualty
of history, consigned to well-deserved obscurity in dusty archives.

But judging from the introductory excerpt from Kerry’s Saban Forum address, it
has taken on a new lease on life. If only Israel would expose its coastal
metropolis, its only international airport, its major seaports, its vital
infrastructures (power, water and land transport systems), 80 percent of its
civilian population and 80% of its commercial activity to the very weapons
being used against it today, from territory handed over to Palestinian control
in the past, then, miraculously, peace, prosperity and progress would suddenly
blossom.

As implausible as this idea was in the dizzying days of the ‘90s, when there
was a semblance of regional stability and a sense of US credibility and
influence, today in the tectonic post-“Arab Spring” upheavals and accelerating
erosion of America’s standing, any such notion is so detached from reality as
to be borderline deranged.

It is difficult to know what would be more disconcerting, that the secretary of
state of the United States believes the tripe he is disseminating, or he
doesn’t, and is disseminating it anyway.

Invoking the wrong models

I could, of course, continue to dwell on the myriad ludicrous flaws, and
glaring non sequiturs that pervade Kerry’s address, but his was not the only
example of the wildly implausible that surfaced during the weekend Washington
deliberations. The ideas conveyed by his boss, Barack Obama, during his
interview by Forum’s sponsor, Haim Saban, made no more sense.

In response to Saban’s eminently cogent question as to what the value of a
settlement with Mahmoud Abbas would be if Gaza, in which Abbas exerts no
control, is not included.

Obama’s response: “If there is a model… even if initially it’s restricted to
the West Bank… where young Palestinians in Gaza are looking and seeing that in
the West Bank Palestinians are able to live in dignity, with self-determination,
and suddenly their economy is booming and trade is taking place because they
have created an environment in which Israel is confident about its security and
a lot of the old barriers to commerce and educational exchange and all that has
begun to break down, that’s something that the young people of Gaza are going
to want.”

There are of course many criticisms that could be leveled at this response,
which disregards the sequence of events that led to the present situation and
ignores the causal mechanisms that produced the current realities in the “West
Bank” and Gaza, but I will limit myself to one.

There is already a model in place for the Palestinians to take note of – but,
sadly, it is the opposite of that proposed by Obama.

It is not some future theoretical model that the “West Bank” might one day
comprise for the young Palestinians in Gaza. Rather, it is a very real,
existing model – that which Gaza represents for the young Palestinians in the
“West Bank.” It is a model that vividly illustrates to them what their fate is
liable to be if Israel accepts the Obama/Kerry prescription and withdraws its
forces.

I bet it is a model that scares the bejeezus out of many of them. Except of
course for those who feel that it is a model to be emulated.

Like tossing a coin

Perhaps the most troubling aspects of Obama’s interview was his reference to
the Iranian nuclear issue and the agreement recently reached with Tehran, which
has drawn sharp criticism from even his closest devotees.

Disingenuously, he remarked, “I want to be very clear there’s nothing in this
agreement or document that grants Iran a right to enrich.” But the overwhelming
international interpretation – including that of Russia and Iran – is that it
does.

This underscores the problematic (read “pernicious”) ambiguity in the newly
signed pact and is an ominous harbinger of the difficulties that will be
encountered in interpreting whether future Iranian behavior constitutes
compliance with, or contravention of, its terms. It is indicative of the
hurdles that will have to be overcome in reconstituting a united international
front against Tehran, should any suspicion – however well-founded in US eyes–
arise that it is in violation of its commitments.

Obama waxed optimistic: “It is my strong belief that we can envision a[n]
end-state that gives us an assurance that even if they have some modest
enrichment capability, it is so constrained and the inspections are so
intrusive that they, as a practical matter, do not have breakout capacity…” But
he then admits: “If you asked me what is the likelihood that we’re able to
arrive at the end-state that I was just describing earlier, I wouldn’t say that
it’s more than 50/50.”

So there you have it. On arguably the most crucial foreign policy issue for his
country – and undoubtedly one of existential importance for Israel – the US
president is blithely prepared to embark on a course that has at least a 50%
chance of failure. Like betting on the toss of a coin. Can Washington get any
more wacko than that?

Blueprint for a horrific future

There is much that has been left unsaid about the disastrous direction in which
US foreign policy is headed. But even from the abbreviated critique that has
been laid out above, one thing clearly emerges.

The agenda being aggressively advanced by Obama and Kerry is founded on myth
and/or malice.

It is prolonging the conflict by propagating and perpetuating pernicious
fictions and falsehoods.

History will prove it to be a blueprint for a horrific future – for Jews and Muslims
alike.

BRAVO! Never in the annals of world journalism have more appropriate words been used to depict the insane policies of the present Obama administration

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

A conventional-weapons attack is preferable to the nuclear war sure to come.

By

NORMAN PODHORETZ

Dec. 11, 2013 7:12 p.m. ET

Not too many years ago, hardly anyone disagreed with John McCain when he first said that "the only thing worse than bombing Iran is letting Iran get the bomb." Today hardly anyone disagrees with those who say that the only thing worse than letting Iran get the bomb is bombing Iran. And in this reversal hangs a tale.

The old consensus was shaped by three considerations, all of which seemed indisputable at the time.

The first was that Iran was lying when it denied that its nuclear facilities were working to build a bomb. After all, with its vast reserves of oil and gas, the country had no need for nuclear energy. Even according to the liberal Federation of American Scientists a decade ago, the work being done at the Iranian nuclear facilities was easily "applicable to a nuclear weapons development program." Surprisingly, a similar judgment was made by Mohamed ElBaradei, the very dovish director of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The second consideration was that the prospect of being annihilated in a retaliatory nuclear strike, which had successfully deterred the Soviets and the Chinese from unleashing their own nuclear weapons during the Cold War, would be ineffective against an Iran ruled by fanatical Shiite mullahs. As Bernard Lewis, the leading contemporary authority on Islam, put it in 2007, to these fanatics "mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already [from the Iran-Iraq war] that they do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers. . . . They are giving them a quick free pass to heaven and all its delights."

Iranian President Hasan Rouhani at a Nov. 24 news conference in Tehran. EPA

Nor were the rulers of Iran deterred by the fear that their country would be destroyed in a nuclear war. In the words of the Ayatollah Khomeini, who brought the Islamist revolution to Iran in 1979: "We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. . . . I say let this land [Iran] go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world." (The quote appeared in a 1981 Iranian collection of the ayatollah's speeches. In later editions, that line and others were deleted as Iran tried to stir up nationalistic fervor amid the war with Iraq.)

And here, speaking in particular of a nuclear exchange with Israel—that "cancer" which the mullahs were and are solemnly pledged to wipe off the map—is the famous "moderate" Hashemi Rafsanjani, in an Al-Quds Day sermon at Tehran University on Dec. 14, 2001: "Application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world." Mr. Rafsanjani, an earlier president of Iran, is the sponsor and mentor of its current president, that other celebrated "moderate," Hasan Rouhani.

The third consideration behind the old consensus was the conviction that even if the mullahs could be deterred, their acquisition of a nuclear capability would inevitably trigger a nuclear-arms race in the Middle East. Because the Sunni regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere throughout the region were all terrified at the prospect of being lorded over and held hostage by an Iran ruled by their ancestral enemies the Shiites, those regimes would rush to equip themselves with their own nuclear arsenals.

Such an arms race would vastly increase the danger that these weapons might go off, if not by design then by accident. Retired Col. Ken Allard, a former dean of the National War College, explained why last week in the Washington Times: "Even with the steady injection of technology, U.S. and Soviet permissive-action links and fail-safe systems still needed a fair amount of luck to avoid an accidental detonation. What about Iranian, Saudi or even Egyptian nuclear forces? If they build such weapons, will they also invest in the technologies and practice the unforgiving disciplines needed to avoid the worst of all man-made calamities?"

Just as almost everyone agreed that Iran must be prevented from acquiring a nuclear capability, there was a similarly broad agreement that this could be done through a judicious combination of diplomacy and sanctions. To be sure, there were those—myself emphatically included—who argued that nothing short of military action could do the trick. But we were far outweighed by the proponents of peaceful means who, however, willingly acknowledged that the threat of military action was necessary to the success of their strategy.

Yet as the years wore on, it became clear, even to the believers in this strategy, that the Iranians would not be stopped either by increasingly harsh sanctions—or by endless negotiations. One might have expected the strategy's proponents to conclude, if with all due reluctance, that the only recourse left was to make good on the threat of military action. Yet while they continued to insist that "all options are on the table," it also became increasingly clear that for Western political leaders as well as the mainstream think tanks and the punditocracy, the stomach for the military option was no longer there, if indeed it had ever been.

And so began the process of what Col. Allard calls "learning to love the Iranian bomb." The first step was to raise serious doubts about the old consensus. Yes, the Iranians were determined to build a bomb, and, yes, the mullahs were Islamist fanatics, but on further reflection there was good reason to think that they were not really as suicidal as the likes of Bernard Lewis persuaded us. That being the case, there was also good reason to drop the idea that it would be impossible to deter and contain them, as we had done even with the far more powerful Soviets and Chinese.

It was the new consensus shaped by such thinking that prepared the way for the accord reached by six major powers with Iran in Geneva last month. The Obama administration tells us that the interim agreement puts Iran on a track that will lead to the abandonment of its quest for a nuclear arsenal. But the Iranians are jubilant because they know that the only abandonment going on is of our own effort to keep them from getting the bomb.

Adherents of the new consensus would have us believe that only two choices remain: a war to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons or containment of a nuclear Iran—with containment the only responsible option. Yet as an unregenerate upholder of the old consensus, I remain convinced that containment is impossible, from which it follows that the two choices before us are not war vs. containment but a conventional war now or a nuclear war later.

Given how very unlikely it is that President Obama, despite his all-options-on-the-table protestations to the contrary, would ever take military action, the only hope rests with Israel. If, then, Israel fails to strike now, Iran will get the bomb. And when it does, the Israelis will be forced to decide whether to wait for a nuclear attack and then to retaliate out of the rubble, or to pre-empt with a nuclear strike of their own. But the Iranians will be faced with the same dilemma. Under these unprecedentedly hair-trigger circumstances, it will take no time before one of them tries to beat the other to the punch.

And so my counsel to proponents of the new consensus is to consider the unspeakable horrors that would then be visited not just on Israel and Iran but on the entire region and beyond. The destruction would be far worse than any imaginable consequences of an Israeli conventional strike today when there is still a chance to put at least a temporary halt, and conceivably even a permanent one, to the relentless Iranian quest for the bomb.

Mr. Podhoretz was the editor of Commentary from 1960-95. His most recent book is "Why Are Jews Liberals?" (Doubleday, 2009).